Category Archives: 2013

Owning a cottage sounds fun. But at what point do you realize you’re in over your head in renovating up a run-down lake bungalow in northeastern Connecticut? When I peeled up layers of carpet, linoleum, and asbestos tile to find a mostly rotted subfloor? When my roofer failed … Continue reading →

I gave myself a mountain for my 31st birthday. And not any hill. At 5,344 feet, Mt. Marcy is the tallest peak in both New York State and the Adirondack Mountains. It’s just south of Lake Placid, where huge ski jumps testify to the … Continue reading →

My first climb up the iconic 800-foot-high western face of Pão de Açúcar took a bit over five hours, via the routes Italianos (rated 5.10) and Secundo (rated 5.9). My second time up the same routes was nearly an hour faster. I can understand how … Continue reading →

This is Sarah bouldering at Morro do Urca in October on a 30-foot-long horizontal called Travessia Rio Terê. I blogged about this bouldering area last month, with a video of my buddy Aloisio flashing the entire traverse. Sarah and I had a … Continue reading →

I don’t have a death wish (I think) but I often have the urge to jump from high places. At Niagara Falls, I wanted to wade into the rushing water and soar over the edge. Atop the Empire State Building, I … Continue reading →

In Rio, life’s a beach. Literally, the city is lined by miles and miles of beautiful sandy shore, from Flamengo to Botofogo to Copacobana to Ipanema to Leblon, and much of that is lined by a very unique sidewalk of black … Continue reading →

UFOs, killer polka dots, African presidents strolling Ipanema… Rio de Janeiro is unique for more than bikinis and beaches. ESCADARIA SELARON: So this was inspiring. In the 1990s, the Chile-born artist Jorge Selarón decided to fix up the steps in front of … Continue reading →

They eat better in Sao Paulo, but my preference is for the street food of Rio de Janeiro. Which is both cheaper and more unique than the Western-style pizzas and pastas and meat-heavy dishes at most Carioca restaurants. (By meat-heavy, … Continue reading →

I have visited the future, and it is called Sao Paulo. This city is overwhelming. In good and bad ways. Bad for its congestion, traffic, poor transportation, smog, sprawl, lack of greenery, lack of scenery. It resembles the backdrop for … Continue reading →

Barren rocks are great places for making friends. Several weeks ago during a work meeting, I segued the conversation to rock climbing and was put in touch with a Rio native named Aloisio Viana, who promptly invited me to climb … Continue reading →

This weekend and last weekend was “Rock in Rio,” which is billed as Latin America’s biggest music concert and featured Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Justin Timberlake, Metallica, and many other US bands that I could have seen if I stayed in New York. Better … Continue reading →

Apparently it’s fairly common, and not just to foreigners. An American like me or a Brazilian like my language teacher might one day swipe their bank card at an ATM, withdraw cash, and the next day or week several thousand dollars … Continue reading →

My location: Rio’s iconic Pão de Açúcar, an island-rock jutting out at the mouth of Guanabara Bay. My mission: To summit the 1,299-foot-tall peak. The previous weekend I had hiked neighboring Morro da Urca, but summiting Pão de Açúcar (“Sugarloaf”) is a … Continue reading →

For 30 years, I was a virgin to live pro futebol. Tonight, after a three-decade-wait, I attended my first-ever pro futebol match, and it could not have been a better experience. Rio de Janeiro’s beloved home team of Flamengo was hosting … Continue reading →

Let’s head to the slums for some music and dancing! That was the plan tonight, as I was told it’s actually become a popular thing to do in Rio — a preposterous idea just a few years ago before the state … Continue reading →

This is the flag of Brazil, billowing atop Praça Engenheiro Bernardo Saião in Rio de Janeiro. On the green flag is a yellow rhombus — two colors of the old imperial Portuguese flag — surrounding a blue disc filled with 27 white … Continue reading →

One of the most interesting things about New Orleans is, I think, the doors. They’re colorful, slender and tall, each about 10 feet high (you can tell by how low the doorknob appears in the photos), as if constructed for some … Continue reading →

Now that I’ve explained how to safely eat a beignet, I can move on to describing other foods of New Orleans. This will not include the overrated po’ boy, which while ubiquitous is really nothing more than some sloppy meat … Continue reading →

A beignet is somewhat synonymous with New Orleans. It’s like a fritter, and it’s actually the official state doughnut of Louisiana, which might imply that they’re sold on every street corner, the Down South equivalent to Starbucks in New York City. … Continue reading →

Why are car drivers either aggressive and angry, or lazy and delinquent? Because they’re locked in a metal cage instead of riding free like motorcyclists. And why don’t cage-drivers like motorcyclists? Because they’re jealous that we motorcyclists escaped the cage! That’s what I … Continue reading →

When a legendary New England mountaineer who has led teams to the summit Mt Everest warns against attempting what he considers a “superman” trek across the White Mountains of New Hampshire, it’s prudent to listen. So I listened. I relayed … Continue reading →

You are welcome to camp on an airstrip in New York City. Which sounds terrible. But this is Floyd Bennett Field, which opened in 1931 as the first municipal airport in New York City and is today a federal park as part … Continue reading →

As an art museum, the Guggenheim bores me. As a building, it’s spiral construction is inspiring. The current exhibit by James Turrell turns the best part of the Guggenheim into a new piece art. You walk into the museum’s atrium … Continue reading →

What can’t you find in Central Park? The 840-acre space hides two ice skating rinks, an Olympic-size pool, a half-century old carousel, a free theater where the likes of Meryl Streep and Al Pacino perform Shakespeare every summer, and a … Continue reading →

As a big fan of Son Lux, the stage name of musician Ryan Lott, I was bummed to miss his much-raved about performance with the Stephen Petriono ballet company in May. “Like Lazarus Did” is the story of life — … Continue reading →

Until rereading The Great Gatsby this month, I never noticed all its references to the age of 30. Perhaps I’m just more sensitive to 30 because because I marked my third decade on Earth last December. Also, my good buddy Nate turned 30 last week. In one … Continue reading →

A short video I edited together of my spring ski trip to Tuckerman Ravine, Mt. Washington, which I blogged about here a couple weeks ago.

My apartment-mate Nate has lived many lives: school teacher in Honduras, newspaper reporter in Hartford, bank analyst in Mexico, pisco sommelier in Peru, physics lab technician in the Bronx. In his latest incarnation, Nate is a cook at both a Peruvian … Continue reading →

When New England thaws out in springtime and the region’s ski resorts close shop, skiers head to a place where the snow never melts. On the southeast face of Mt. Washington, Tuckerman Ravine every winter accumulates an average 55 FEET of snow … Continue reading →

These are my major takeaways from trekking the 100-kilometer-long MacLehose trail, which traverses Hong Kong’s New Territories from sea level to a peak elevation of 550 meters (1,800 feet): Do it between October and February (and not in the rainy … Continue reading →

In Blackjack, it’s easy to lose money fast when the minimum bet is around $50 per hand. The MINIMUM. So it went for me in Macau, the world’s gambling capital, which sees such high demand from Chinese customers that it can … Continue reading →

Sunday began with dim sum. It continued with a leisurely afternoon at the horse races — as any Sunday should. First, the dim sum at Luk Yu Teahouse. Since opening in 1933 in the Central district of Hong Kong, Luk Yu … Continue reading →

A favorite memory of living in Cambodia for two years was a restaurant on my street called Chinese Noodle, which made fresh thick rice noodles woven daily by hand. Almost as good: My first bowl of noodles at Hong Kong’s Michelin-recommended Good Hope … Continue reading →

It’s the Ching Ming Festival in Hong Kong, a holiday when locals visit the graves of ancestors and place flowers or other token offerings at the headstones. It reminds me of All Souls Days in Europe, when tens of thousands of people flock to … Continue reading →

Even from the top of Bear Mountain, 45 miles north of Manhattan along the Hudson River, New York City’s skyline looms on the horizon and lights up the southern sky. Still, the state park is far enough from Manhattan to easily offer a restive … Continue reading →

Hungover and on two hours sleep, Nate took his bar mitzvah today. He was about 17 years late to the ceremony, but he went to the right place for it in Crown Heights: the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters, considered one of the world’s largest Hasidic … Continue reading →

“You’ll die out there,” the locals warned. I was headed into the Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains for a week of winter hiking and camping. Ideally, I wanted to summit all the highest peaks during the harshest conditions of the … Continue reading →

The waterbottle beside my bunkbed was frozen solid. The temperature in our unheated cabin — nestled between Wildcat Mountain and Carter Dome, two of the top 20 tallest peaks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire — was in the … Continue reading →